Losing It (8 page)

Dear Jo,

What say I just come visit for half an hour? We need to talk. I’ve spoken with the doctor and he thinks so too.

Please, Jo. Please let me visit.

Missing you heaps,

Love always,

Dad

All we have left is the power to refuse.

D,

(Sounds slightly better than ‘dear diary’ – more direct and less flowery.) To the point. That’s me.

Today I feel sick.

Sick of being inside my own head. It’s such a mess in here. A stuffed up mess. They nag at me to eat but I’m scared because I know that once I start I won’t be able to stop. I’ll just eat and eat and eat until I burst like a big fat bubble.

Like the first time I binged.

It was because of Aunty Kay. Well, it wasn’t actually her fault or anything. But she was staying with us. Aunty Kay is Mum’s sister. I mean WAS Mum’s sister. (No, that’s not right either. Are you still someone’s sister if they die?)

Anyway, she had this new baby called Zak and they came to stay with us for the weekend, which I really hated. I’m not even sure why. I just felt crap with everyone
playing
happy families. Like I was in the way. Aunty Kay is so different since she’s had the baby. It’s weird. Everyone wanted to hold it except for me. That’s all they wanted to do. Even Matt. What a fuss. Like, he had to sit on the couch with cushions propped up everywhere and the
baby’s head had to be exactly right and it was all a big drama with Uncle Brian taking photos every time the baby even opened its mouth. Then, when it pooed, it was some, like, major medical emergency.

Fuss. Fuss. Fuss. Dad said Zak looked just like Matt did when he was a baby, which isn’t surprising considering everyone says how much Aunty Kay looks like Mum. Dad said a lot of stuff that weekend. He was getting all nostalgic and I guess it made me feel guilty.

It felt weird watching Aunty Kay with the baby too. Hard to explain. I guess I felt confused and … jealous, maybe. And when they left I felt sad. And then I felt guilty again.

And that’s when I started pigging out. I was cleaning up after dinner and instead of putting the leftovers in the fridge I put them straight in my mouth. We’d had spaghetti bolognaise and garlic bread and I just stuffed everything in. Packed it all down my neck. And once I started I couldn’t stop. It was like I’d found this hole and I was plugging it up with food.

When I finished I felt sick and full and
disgusting
– like a big fat pig. And I had to go lie down on the bed because I felt so revolting and then I thought ‘if only I could get rid of it’. And that’s when I made myself sick. That’s the first
time I ever put my fingers down my throat… The first time ever…

Must write to Issy again soon.

D,

God, I hate hospitals!

The smell of disinfectant – everything all stiff and starchy. It’s like being cut off from the world, because when you look out the window people are just going about their business without you. And you think, how dare they? How dare they carry on like that without you? It’s like no one even knows you’re up there – all flattened into nothing, with starched sheets and nurses and doctors telling you what to do all day. I feel like taking one of those stupid sheets and writing ‘Help!’ in big fat letters with orange lipstick or tomato sauce or something and dangling it out the window. Except that there are all these humungously high hedges everywhere so probably no one would even notice. Maybe that’s why they grew the hedges in the first place. Maybe there have been escape missions in the past with patients abseiling to freedom on knotted hospital sheets…

Nah!

It was scary when Mum went into hospital. At first Dad said it was going to be for just the one night. Only it wasn’t because she stayed for weeks. Aunty Kay wasn’t married then so she came to help look after us.

I remember going to visit Mum with Dad and Aunty Kay. She was propped up in bed with pillows – a red cardy draped around her shoulders, her hair sticking out funny and no lipstick on. Slow motion Mum with this weird slurry voice and dead-bird eyes.

Two days later:

Francine has got worse. I don’t know the details but apparently her family are at her bedside, so it must be serious.

Poor things. It must be hard when there’s nothing you can do to help. When all you can do is stand and watch.

Like with Mum. God, I hated it. All those creepy corridors and the nurses making silly jokes and talking to her like she was some little kid. ‘How are we today, Mrs Morrison? We won’t get big and strong if we don’t eat our breakfast, will we now?’

The meals came on a trolley. Dry knobs of food plonked on thick white plates. How could she eat that muck? We’re not allowed meals on trolleys in this hospital because we have to eat in the dining room with knives and forks and nurses watching on like hawks. Not much fun for them either, I don’t suppose. (Watching Kara eat is excruciating. She cuts every piece of food into a zillion tiny mouthfuls, stacking it all into little piles.) The rest of us aren’t much better, chewing the meat until it turns to dust in our mouths. In this place you can’t leave the table until thirty minutes after you eat. That’s the rule.

At Mum’s hospital I pressed the wrong button in the lift once and we ended up on this floor that was like a museum with glass cases full of old surgical instruments and stuff. They looked more like tools for fixing cars to me. I used to have nightmares about those instruments.

Mum had electric shock treatment. Bzzzzz … Bzzzz …

I wasn’t supposed to know that but Aunty Kay let it slip one day when we were having a milkshake at the hospital café. Electric shocks
were going to make her better, she said. Electric shocks? How bizarre. I used to imagine the doctors forcing her fingers into the electric plug and her hair standing on end like in the cartoons.

When Mum came home from hospital she was a different person. She didn’t lie about in bed all day any more but she was like a robot. Dad said it was the drugs and just ‘give it a couple of months and she’ll be right as rain’. But she looked so vacant, like no one was home. Even her hair looked weird and when she smiled it was only her mouth because her eyes were blank holes. Blankety blank. Everything in slow motion. Hey, Mum. Knock, knock. Who’s there?

‘Go away and leave me alone.’

She didn’t get mad like she used to. She didn’t cover her ears or lose her temper or slouch off to the bedroom when Matt played with the pots any more. Nothing like that. The trouble was, she didn’t get anything. She just smiled this fake robot smile and cleaned the house. One
day I watched her cleaning the bench. Wipe, wipe, wipe with the dishcloth on the same spot, over and over,
gazing
into nothingland.
Where are you, Mum
? I wanted to scream.
Where the heck are you
?!!!

Her pills were in a line on the windowsill above the sink. Dad used to say if they tipped her up she’d rattle. He tried to make a joke of it but it was hard to laugh.

The pills made her fat and her face went into a different shape – like a potato. They made her forget things, too. Important things. Like, one day she forgot to pick me up from school. In the junior school you’re not allowed to leave until someone collects you. And because Mum didn’t arrive I had to stay on the mat until the last kid left and then Mrs Clayton took me to the office and phoned home. She waited for ages, tapping her long nails on the desk and pursing her lips to let me know she had more important things to do – looking at her watch every two seconds. But there was no answer. So then she phoned Dad’s work and he came racing over – grumpy, but pretending not to be.

At home Mum was fast asleep on the couch with Matt crying his head off in his bedroom. Matt’s face was blotchy red like he’d been bawling for hours but Mum hadn’t heard a thing.

Dad was really mad at first but he soon calmed down. When Mum woke up she burst into tears. I had a sore tummy after that – every day my tummy felt like
something
bad was about to happen.

Dad tried to explain. He said that Mum still wasn’t well and that she felt sad most of the time, which I didn’t
understand
. Why was she sad? I had so many questions. Like why and how come and when was she going to get better?

Dad couldn’t answer most of them. He said it had something to do with having the baby, so I asked if she was sad after having me as well and Dad said yes, a little bit, and I said well, what did she go and have another baby for then?

And Dad just shrugged.

Some days were better than others. Some days Mum seemed fine and others were write-offs. She couldn’t cope with anything going wrong.

Like, for example, not long after Mum came home from hospital our fridge broke down. We got home from school and the ice cream was all melted and the frozen veg were soggy and there was blood dripping from the mince. So we took everything out, put it on the bench and waited for Dad to come home. Dad said there was no point mucking around because once a fridge broke down it was just as cheap to get a new one. So we all traipsed into town to choose a new fridge. The man said the new fridge would be delivered the next day and they’d take the old one away for nothing.

When I got home from school the next day I couldn’t wait to see our new fridge. I’d been thinking about it all day. But Mum was sitting at the table with her head in her hands like something bad had happened. And there were
two fridges in the kitchen – the new one and the old one. Side by side. I asked her why they hadn’t taken the broken fridge away and she said they didn’t take it away because there turned out to be nothing wrong with it. A fuse had blown, that was all, which meant there was nothing wrong with the original fridge.

I still couldn’t work out why we now had two fridges. And I don’t think Mum could either. She just sat there with her head in her hands like the whole world was coming to an end.

When Dad got home he just laughed. I should have checked all that out, he said. Oh well, not to worry.

Dear Jo,

Breaking news – Ashley King has broken up with Ben Spooner. What a drama. Only two weeks to go and now she has no partner. I’m beginning to think a blind date is not such a bad idea after all. At least you can’t have an argument and stuff everything up. Well, not before the big night anyway.

Hey, and guess what my first assignment for the
newspaper
is? A full report on the formal. I’m allowed to take the school’s digital camera along to get some candid shots, which might be fun. And at least I’ll have something to do if it gets boring. My job is to take the pictures and there’s a Year Twelve guy called Tim who’s going to do the text. He’s quite cute really, in a slightly nerdy kind of way.

Oh, and my mystery man has finally been revealed. He’s called Mike Maxwell. I feel more nervous than ever knowing his name. Mike Maxwell? What do you think?!

We are going as a foursome with Kathy Symons and a guy called Rodney who is Mike Maxwell’s friend and Mum says I have to start looking forward to it and stop fretting about you not being there. (Which is all very well for her to say!)

I don’t know what Kathy Symons is like. All I know is that she’s number two on the tennis ladder and she’s got an older brother called Malcolm in Year Thirteen who plays in the school orchestra.

Oh, one good thing: she’s offered her place for
pre-formal cocktails, which gives me an excuse to get Mum off my back. I know she’s been champing at the bit to do it but I’d rather keep my family on the sidelines, at arms length, and as far away from the action as possible.

Meredith is getting on my nerves and if I hear one more word about the great formal of 2000 I will run away and join a travelling science fair. You are so lucky to have a brother, Jo. Sisters are the pits, especially older ones who’ve done everything before you have and of course it was so much better when they did it. They both had proper dates to start with! (Not blind ones, like me.) Or, so they keep saying.

Anyway, they forget that I’ve actually seen their formal photos and the guys don’t look that shit hot to me. Kate’s wasn’t too bad but the guy Meredith went with looks like something out of the new
King Kong
movie.

Must go.

Take care, Jo.

Luv, Issy

P.S. Special treat! Mum bought me make-up the other day. It was kind of like shopping for my first bra! A mother/daughter bonding session – well, so Mum kept saying, and I suppose it was quite sweet. I have to say the cosmetics department was an eye-opening experience. Far out! Do you have any idea how complicated choosing make-up is? Mascara technology would blow you away for starters. I had to choose between – volume building, double
extension, lash expansion, extreme curl and wide eye. And here’s me thinking it was all just black gook to make your lashes look longer. (Not that you’ll get to see much from behind the glasses anyway. Kate reckons I should get contact lenses but I think I’d be too squeamish to put them in.)

P.P.S. I can absolutely identify with Dot not liking her name. I feel the same about Isabelle. Like, if I hear one more joke about ‘is a bell necessary on your bike?’ I’ll scream. Isabelle sounds so old-fashioned and Isabella would have been much nicer. Then I could have been called Bella.